Phage Therapy as a Protective Tool Against Pathogenic Bacteria: How Far We Are?

Abstract

Bacterial infections continue to jeopardize human and animal health, impacting millions of lives by causing significant deaths every year. The use of antibiotics remains the primary choice of therapy and has only been partly successful in reducing the disease burden due to the evolving nature of resistant microbes. Widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics resulted in the development of antibiotic-resistant microbial species provoking substantial economic burdens. The most promising way to resolve the issue of antibiotic resistance is the use of bacterial viruses called bacteriophages to treat microbial infections. Earlier reports on experimental bacteriophage therapy showed successful patient outcomes, and many clinical trials of such clinical bacteriophages have already been investigated in many western countries. In this review, we are focusing on the advantages as well as drawbacks of bacteriophage therapy to use it as an alternative to antibiotics for microbial infections, together with its current success status. There is also a need to extensively study the past, present, and future outlook of phage therapy in comparison to presently available antimicrobial agents and especially immunological response by the host after phage administration. Our aim is to highlight the fast-promoting field of bacteriophage therapy and provocations that lie ahead as the world is gradually moving aside from complete dependence on antimicrobial agents.

Keywords: Antimicrobial agents; clinical trials; immunology; lytic bacteriophages; microbial resistance; pathogenic microorganisms.